There Are Two Fronts to the GOP War on Education and Science
The first front in the war on science and education is the Discovery Institute’s attempts to wedge religion into science classes, the second is a war against public education period.
The GOP battle cry for red state public education is: “Privatize it!” This is how the GOP wants you to let their favorite flavors of religious institutions and private corporations receive tax dollars to provide sub standard education. The GOP battle cry for red state public education is: “Privatize it!”There are some very large hogs snuffling around smelling for dollars outside that public education fence.
But people would be wrong to assume that the GOP is motivated solely by a hatred of big government. The GOP has shown itself time and again willing and able to use big government to push its agenda, particularly since 2010 with its crafting of historica numbers of anti-abortion legislation.
No, ironically, given the GOP’s vocal disdain of money as a solution, the secret motivator here is…money.
Privatization is the new Gold Rush. There is money to be made in them there hills. And charter schools are the the Republican hammer to be used to prise it out of our hands.
Georgia has a charter school amendment, which was pushed as a response to a dysfunctional public school system. The logic being, apparently, to replace rather than fix. In Louisiana, where Republicans control both chambers of legislature, Governor Bryant plans to push charter schools again in 2013. I’ve written previously about how Louisiana is banishing its students in that state to the Bronze Age. In both states, there have been cries from opponents of ‘re-segregation.’ The Arkansas Times reported in September on GOP plans to ‘end-run’ charter school restrictions.
If you look at a red state, chances are somebody is trying the pull the rug from under public education, or eddimication, as the mostest educated conservatives call it.
The Progressive reported back in May 2011, on how the Republican scheme functions, using Wisconsin as an example:
Governor Scott Walker’s unprecedented $900 million cut to school funding, coupled with a scheme to create a state-run system of charter schools, will kill off both the school and the town, they said. Under S.B. 22, the bill they came to oppose, students and funds that used to go to schools like Montello’s will be siphoned off to virtual charter schools run by a state board of political appointees.
As Ruth Conniff wrote at The Progressive, ‘K-12 education is the single largest budget item for each of the 50 states. So it stands to reason that privatizing education is the largest front in the conservative war on government.’Privatizing, folks, is a Republican codeword for ‘profit.’ Who takes over when the government is not involved? It’s not charities. It’s for-profit entities. The people who will suddenly become middlemen for your tax dollars